January 27, 2011

January 26, 2011

Last night after work we ventured over to Ono Hawaiian Foods. For years this tiny restaurant has served honest soul food Hawaiian style. The walls are plastered with signed photos of celebrities and VIPs who have visited over the years. Our booth had a super bad Chuck Norris watching over us.

We arrived shortly after the dinner rush and ended up being the last folks remaining. We had an great conversation with our waiter and asked if it was OK if we sat around a little while after we finished our meal. As the staff cleaned up for the night they pulled a wire across the dining room and began hanging dish towels up to dry overnight. It seems so much more real life that eating at a regular old chain restaurant. It was our privilege to take in a little part of authentic Hawaiian life. Good stuff.

January 21, 2011

Tonight JR found these Shrimp Chips in the grocery section when we stopped for a few supplies. Yes, he needed to check them out. I'm actually a little surprised this is not a snack food in South Carolina. No, we did not see any SPAM chips. I like how the bag says made with Real Shrimp. I hate it when they use those fake shrimp!

January 19, 2011

Bethany, our baby girl, posted this today. It is better than anything I have to say..

A vapor...

I think that the older I get, the more I realize that Psalms 39:5 holds a great deal of wisdom. The verse says, “You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath.”

Life is but a breath. Or in the words of one of my favorite songs, “I am a vapor, at best a vapor.”

While I was getting ready this morning, somehow I began to think about my two years at community college. I was thinking about how when I started attending there, my intentions were to get a two year degree and be done with the bit.

I thought originally that if I was to go further than a two year degree that I would most likely attend another local university in Pennsylvania. To be honest, I did not conceive of much of a life outside of that.

And now, I am living in Kenya.

Some days I can see a distinct line as to how I ended up here. And other days I just want to scratch my head at the mystery of it all.

Up until now, the past seems like a remarkable blur and the thing that remains quite clear in the present.

And yet I know that in a very short time, the present, today and this season of life, will be part of the blur of what is behind me. Life just seems so quick in that sense.

A year seems like a sufficient amount of time in the beginning. January holds the air of possibility, of new beginnings, of a fresh start. But then it is summer and we realize that we did not do half, if not a quarter, of the things that we intended to in this new year. And then in is December and in a blink, a year has come and gone.

And not only do years come and go individually, but they also condense together. I think of college and I think of four years all running together in a tiny space of memory. Four years, 1460 days, and I have possibly a few hours of concrete recollections from all of that time.

These past ten months in Kenya feel like the fastest of my life. I cannot figure out if it is where I am that makes the months feel like they are passing so rapidly or if this is just a part of growing older. My grandmother has told me on several occasions that after the age of twenty one, life passes in an instant.

At twenty three, I already want it to slow down. I want to push my heels into time and slow, slow, slow down the pace. But since I know that is not possible, I think the only thing to do is to enjoy the present as much as I can.

Because if I try to enjoy the present as much as possible, if I make that a goal in my life, then the majority of my life will be full of wonderful and beautiful memories, even when those memories join the blur. The blur will be pleasant in some odd way.

At least then my life will be a breath of joy and hopefully, Lord willingly, a vapor that pleases that heart of Jesus.